What is cognitive impairment? Cognitive impairment is when a person has trouble remembering, learning new things, concentrating, or making decisions that affect their everyday life. Cognitive impairment ranges from mild to severe. With mild impairment, people may begin to notice changes in cognitive functions, but still be able to do their everyday activities. Severe levels of impairment can lead to losing the ability to understand the meaning or importance of something and the ability to talk or write, resulting in the inability to live independently.
We are talking today about mild impairment.  Many people can still live on their own with mild impairment.  It is difficult sometimes to determine if our family member who falls in this category is just getting a little older and is not as quick or has a real problem.  We may see personality changes.  Many times we are unaware that this is taking place in ourselves.  Most people who have impairment do not know it.  Family is unsure.  There are many factors that can cause changes in our judgement such as mental illness like depression.  An important way to help determine where your parent or family member stands is by seeing their family doctor or internist and having some labs and a SLUMS test done.  A practitioner has to use several tools available to them including a history from the family.  As practitioners only get a few minutes with a patient at each visit that is not always enough time to make a proper determination. People who are experiencing this issue can sometime tell that something is not quite right.  They may get paranoid.  Many people do not like to be treated as if something is wrong and they are often very afraid of losing their independence.
It is often a good idea to have these tests done fairly early in your mid to late 50s and follow them as one gets older.  This is not often done.  We often don’t start testing until someone comes in with a problem.  A great book to read that has come out recently is “The End of Alzheimer’s”.   
There is something that can be done!  That is the good news!!  Please contact our office and we can help direct you!
Wills Valley Family Medicine 256-524-3090.  You may also call Valley Care DPC 256-619-9966
For more information here is a link to the CDC website on this topic. This is a PDF file you can download and print out as needed. https://www.cdc.gov/aging/pdf/cognitive_impairment/cogimp_poilicy_final.pdf